Do i think they use sales figures? yes i do.they use the actual game sales aka people who bought retail\ digital.do i think they include theoretical sales? hell no.

pirated copy's are not lost sales, case closed.you cant make business decisions from vague estimates and theoretical sales.

do i personally think out of those people who pirate some one would have bought a copy if he didn't have the option? of curse some would , just like out of the people who pirate there are those who still buy copies afterwards.those are just maybes and they work both ways.you should not be making contracts using estimated numbers based on maybes.

if that's how the industry does business then they have only themselves to blame for it , piracy is still not a cause.

You would have to make a case for it to be closed.You yourself admitted that some pirates would have purchased a copy if piracy was unavailable. THERE'S YOUR LOST SALE RIGHT THERE. Not theoretical, an actual 1 to add to the list of sales.

i made my argument about that in my original post~yeah i admitted that i THINK there would be some who would pay for that game.but you cant count sales based on THOUGHT , the only way for you to count that as a lost sale would be if you had the knowledge that some of those people would 100% buy that game if the piracy option was not available but you cant know that and that's the whole point. there's no way to get accurate numbers on any of this meaning you count lost sales on theoretical information.

on that note what do you then say to a pirate that bought that same game he pirated later ?based on your calculations that's still a "lost sale" in the sales figures even if the pirate got it legit.the publisher only sees that a new copy was sold but doesn't see less pirated copy's. and then just claims like the rest that even tho sales were high piracy " crippled" half of it or some other nonsense like that.its inherently a flawed system and should not be used.

Are you kidding? I don't have calculations. I'm talking about sales figures. Your pirate who goes on to buy the game adds 1 to the total sales figure. He is accounted for. I'm not sure where you came up with the idea that my 'calculations' would not account for this. My pirate who would have purchased the game if not for piracy does not add 1 to the sales figure. We agreed that developers use these sales figures in their relations with publishers. Therefore, the person who pirates the game when he would have purchased it instead is doing harm to the developer in not adding to the sales figure. He would have purchased it. He did not because piracy exists. The developer has a weaker position in their next negotiation because of this person.

I'm all for this, very clever (plus, and I don't know if this was intentional, but a GREAT way to get some publicity).

In fact anyone who pirates an indie game being sold at a reasonable price is a monster and a thief honestly... That said I still feel that piracy for over-priced DRM-bullshit-filled games is totally acceptable. After all this is still capitalism unless I'm mistaken, and unless I'm mistaken capitalism is all about who can provide the best service at the best price and, while with things like steam the market is indeed getting better (which is why I have a 100 game steam library that's filling up the majority of my harddrive, and genuinely don't pirate very often any more unless it's an early leak of a game), for some games (those with draconian DRM or absurd prices) piracy remains the best service.

But seriously though if you pirate indie games made by small developers which are priced reasonably then you're an ass.

There are plenty of examples of you benefiting using something without necessarily paying money, because the business model ended up that way. Wikipedia (donations), The Escapist (ads), Land TV broadcasting (ads), F2P (optional paying customets), fanfiction, webcomics, youtube cartoons (hobby work), etc.

Of course, the difference between these and piracy, is that these agreed to free distribution.

But how do you know that for publishers, it's "their fair due" to force a business model on yo where everyone has to pay?

They're not forcing a damn thing on you. It's entirely up to you whether you engage in a transaction with them.

This is entirely different from piracy, where someone take the fruits of the labour the publishers paid for without allowing those who made it happen the option to disagree. The pirates are the only ones who are forcing anything.

Now assume that the game actually ends up being profitable, like most do, regardless of piracy.

Go do some research and come back when you know what you're talking about, because most games *don't* end up being profitable. We just generally don't hear about them or the companies behind them because they disappear after they realize it's not worth their time to try to do this..

Compared to some low level animator or sound effects designer, who just got a monthly paycheck for his work and that's it, why should there also be an "IP holder", who beyond getting money, also has "a fair due" to feel morally entitled to limit the number of people playing the game?

Seriously? You're seriously arguing that the person who came up with the idea, laid down the effort and cash required to make it into a game (whether by doing it themselves, or finding someone willing to risk their cash to hire the people needed to get it done) has no moral right to dictate what happens to it? You do realize that without the IP holder, the IP in question would probably not exist, right?

Beyond the financial ad absurdum of how the industry would break down if everyone would pirate, basically all arguments I hear about piracy, boil down to this moral feeling of how artists should have a right to keep controlling EXACTLY what happens to every copy of their work.

But where does it come from? Most workers have no such rights, they just work, and that's it. Why are artists so priviledged, that their rights involve cntrolling the rest of the world's data transmission to protect their "fair due?"

Actually most creators have every such right. It why we *have* the copyright and patent systems, after all, to protect these people so that they feel that if they spend the time and effort to make something that benefits us all, they'll get properly compensated for it, and not ripped off by a bunch of entitled brats who think not having enough money is justification enough to take anything they like.

vasiD:I'm all for this, very clever (plus, and I don't know if this was intentional, but a GREAT way to get some publicity).

In fact anyone who pirates an indie game being sold at a reasonable price is a monster and a thief honestly... That said I still feel that piracy for over-priced DRM-bullshit-filled games is totally acceptable. After all this is still capitalism unless I'm mistaken, and unless I'm mistaken capitalism is all about who can provide the best service at the best price and, while with things like steam the market is indeed getting better (which is why I have a 100 game steam library that's filling up the majority of my harddrive, and genuinely don't pirate very often any more unless it's an early leak of a game), for some games (those with draconian DRM or absurd prices) piracy remains the best service.

You fail to understand capitalism.

Capitalism doesn't mean you get to unilaterally decide the terms of the deal if you don't like the ones the providers are offering. Capitalism means you get to choose from a number of providers and choose the best one being offered.

Capitalism requires the participation of two parties. Piracy is explicitly *against* capitalism, because it cuts one party out of the equation completely.

Are you kidding? I don't have calculations. I'm talking about sales figures. Your pirate who goes on to buy the game adds 1 to the total sales figure. He is accounted for. I'm not sure where you came up with the idea that my 'calculations' would not account for this. My pirate who would have purchased the game if not for piracy does not add 1 to the sales figure. We agreed that developers use these sales figures in their relations with publishers. Therefore, the person who pirates the game when he would have purchased it instead is doing harm to the developer in not adding to the sales figure. He would have purchased it. He did not because piracy exists. The developer has a weaker position in their next negotiation because of this person.

I think what phoenix352 is saying is that this is negated by the number of people who only buy a game because they were able to pirate it first. I can see the train of thought, but it's no good because he's completely guessing at the numbers, and assuming that the two groups balance each other out based on no evidence whatsoever.

Ooh, I would actually like to buy this game, I just don't have $8 now... Maybe next week. I loved Game Dev Story for Android, so I'll certainly be giving this a close look soon. Off to get the demo, then.

vasiD:I'm all for this, very clever (plus, and I don't know if this was intentional, but a GREAT way to get some publicity).

In fact anyone who pirates an indie game being sold at a reasonable price is a monster and a thief honestly... That said I still feel that piracy for over-priced DRM-bullshit-filled games is totally acceptable. After all this is still capitalism unless I'm mistaken, and unless I'm mistaken capitalism is all about who can provide the best service at the best price and, while with things like steam the market is indeed getting better (which is why I have a 100 game steam library that's filling up the majority of my harddrive, and genuinely don't pirate very often any more unless it's an early leak of a game), for some games (those with draconian DRM or absurd prices) piracy remains the best service.

You fail to understand capitalism.

Capitalism doesn't mean you get to unilaterally decide the terms of the deal if you don't like the ones the providers are offering. Capitalism means you get to choose from a number of providers and choose the best one being offered.

Capitalism requires the participation of two parties. Piracy is explicitly *against* capitalism, because it cuts one party out of the equation completely.

U wot?

And piracy isn't a provider? (Which was the whole point of my post)

That's bullshit.

Piracy is still being participated in by two parties, there is the consumer and the supplier... Just because the supplier isn't charging money doesn't suddenly negate the fact that they're offering a service... Or is it *against* capitalism when a company offers free anything?

"Capitalism doesn't mean you get to unilaterally decide the terms of the deal if you don't like the ones the providers are offering. Capitalism means you get to choose from a number of providers and choose the best one being offered."

Yeah, and my post was stating the fact that sometimes Piracy is the best one being offered... O_o

It's not like someone goes online and says "I want this, it is now mine" and suddenly it's all set to go... it has to be uploaded by someone and shared with them (which is why it's so hard for piracy to be stopped, because all pirates are friends and what's the world coming to if we can't share media with our friends?)...

That said I fucking hate capitalism anyway so the point is moot if you're trying to change my mind on piracy, I was merely using the retarded and doomed system that everyone seems to worship as a solid example of why companies need to stop bitching about piracy and offer better services already if they're having a problem (though, again, not in the case of indie games or anyone for that matter offering their game at a reasonable price in a reasonable format, in which case it's just theft).

You would have to make a case for it to be closed.You yourself admitted that some pirates would have purchased a copy if piracy was unavailable. THERE'S YOUR LOST SALE RIGHT THERE. Not theoretical, an actual 1 to add to the list of sales.

i made my argument about that in my original post~yeah i admitted that i THINK there would be some who would pay for that game.but you cant count sales based on THOUGHT , the only way for you to count that as a lost sale would be if you had the knowledge that some of those people would 100% buy that game if the piracy option was not available but you cant know that and that's the whole point. there's no way to get accurate numbers on any of this meaning you count lost sales on theoretical information.

on that note what do you then say to a pirate that bought that same game he pirated later ?based on your calculations that's still a "lost sale" in the sales figures even if the pirate got it legit.the publisher only sees that a new copy was sold but doesn't see less pirated copy's. and then just claims like the rest that even tho sales were high piracy " crippled" half of it or some other nonsense like that.its inherently a flawed system and should not be used.

Are you kidding? I don't have calculations. I'm talking about sales figures. Your pirate who goes on to buy the game adds 1 to the total sales figure. He is accounted for. I'm not sure where you came up with the idea that my 'calculations' would not account for this. My pirate who would have purchased the game if not for piracy does not add 1 to the sales figure. We agreed that developers use these sales figures in their relations with publishers. Therefore, the person who pirates the game when he would have purchased it instead is doing harm to the developer in not adding to the sales figure. He would have purchased it. He did not because piracy exists. The developer has a weaker position in their next negotiation because of this person.

when i say calculations i mean the sales figures.my pirate as i stated is indeed counted as a sales figure BUT he also pirated the game beforehand meaning he is also a "lost sale" based on your rules.

so how can 1 person then be both a sale figure and a lost sale figure?that's the pickle with that one.

i agree that the person who would have bought a copy if the option of piracy wasn't available would do harm to the dev but again you don't know that he would have.there is no way to determine that information.saying that he harms the dev is hypothetical because you need to assume that he otherwise would of bought it.meaning anyone that pirates is completely irrelevant to any sales figures period.

if a developer chooses to calculate lost sales from piracy along side the actual sales figures he ends up basing it on estimates and nothing else so there can be no argument made that piracy affected his negotiations.because in our current reality you cant prove that a pirate would buy that game if piracy wasn't a thing. so the end figures are just lies.

that's the whole overarching point its simply a fact that piracy does no harm.

This isn't that new. The third Spyro game did this to those who got pirated 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

Piracy is still being participated in by two parties, there is the consumer and the provider just like any other "provider"... Just because the provider isn't charging money doesn't suddenly negate the fact that they're offering a service... Or is it *against* capitalism when a company offers free anything?

That said I fucking hate capitalism anyway so the point is moot if you're trying to change my mind on piracy, I was merely using the retarded and doomed system that everyone seems to worship as a solid example of why companies need to stop bitching about piracy and offer better services already if they're having a problem (though, again, not in the case of indie games or anyone for that matter offering their game at a reasonable price in a reasonable format, in which case it's just theft)

Last time I checked Piracy is always the better service by simple virtue that theirs is free, and unless companies start paying you to take the product (Which I somehow doubt will work) I don't see that changing.

I haven't pirated a game in years and years, ever since I had a disposable income, but this idea that piracy is killing gaming is ridiculous. Games are selling more than ever with higher revenues than ever and the only thing hurting some of the bigger publishers is that they can't keep their budgets under control.Look at Ubisoft, about a year ago they got rid of the most extreme DRM they had, instituted one time activations, and their revenues have hit an all time high, 1.1 billion euros! Their earnings are through the roof and beat expectations by a wide margin.Piracy is always going to exist. A very small sliver of people who pirate would ever buy the game. If you want those people to buy the game make it as easy as possible, make sure they get updates on time, have features like cloud save or easy matchmaking and chat functions built in that only paid players can access and you will convert as many of those people as possible. The rest are just NEVER going to buy your game.

Piracy leads to more people playing your game, and if your game is good then they will not only gain trust in you as a developer (leading to much better sales for future games) but they will help market your game through word of mouth. Look at minecraft, not only is it one of the most easily pirated games of all time it is also one of the most successful indie games of all time. Why? Because piracy helped send it to almost viral like popularity.

i feel like with minecraft, that had less to do with the amount of people who pirate it, and more to do with The Yogscast. Their videos did a lot to increase the popularity of minecraft. heck, i dont even like games like minecraft, and i almost bought it because The Yogscast made it seem so fun

This isn't that new. The third Spyro game did this to those who got pirated 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

But seriously, only 6.4% people bought legit copies? Jesus...

That's not the same thing... That's just regular old DRM...

They're talking about a very clever bit of DRM in a video game about making a video game studio that sees your studio go out of business due to piracy on pirated copies of the game.

I mean, don't get me wrong they're both DRM that stop you from playing, just one (Spyro) just blatantly says "you copied this game you thief, you may go no farther", while the other one forces a game over that RELATES DIRECTLY to the act of theft you committed.

Granted, in Spyro it is neat hearing it from a voice acted fairy rather than a black screen with white text.

Piracy is still being participated in by two parties, there is the consumer and the provider just like any other "provider"... Just because the provider isn't charging money doesn't suddenly negate the fact that they're offering a service... Or is it *against* capitalism when a company offers free anything?

That said I fucking hate capitalism anyway so the point is moot if you're trying to change my mind on piracy, I was merely using the retarded and doomed system that everyone seems to worship as a solid example of why companies need to stop bitching about piracy and offer better services already if they're having a problem (though, again, not in the case of indie games or anyone for that matter offering their game at a reasonable price in a reasonable format, in which case it's just theft)

Last time I checked Piracy is always the better service by simple virtue that theirs is free, and unless companies start paying you to take the product (Which I somehow doubt will work) I don't see that changing.

Not quite, and anyone who has gotten a virus off a bad link can tell you that.

Don't get me wrong, free is a nice price, but it usually takes a bit of work (almost unnoticeable to those who are tech savvy but quite the barrier to those who aren't), doesn't run as well as an updated and patched game, and sometimes features errors or other difficulties.

I'm super tech savvy, and super poor, but it's worthy my money to have the 100 steam games I do be kept up for me by the service (and their prices were all more than reasonable). In fact a really good recent example is my purchase not more than a week ago of Dragon Age: Origins Ultimate on Steam. Now pretty much since I built my computer I've had a pirated copy of the game on it, just because I wanted to see what the game looked like on my PC (not even really play it, I beat it on PS3 and am not quite ready for a new game yet), and I would have been fine with my functional and updated cracked copy, but Steam offered it to me for $8, and that seemed reasonable, so I got rid of my pirated version and installed Steam's.

Companies can EASILY still win, they just have to offer a better service at a reasonable price.

Plus, while piracy can be nice for the pocketbook of the customer, it does leave developers in the lurch, and hopefully gamers can think long term enough to realize that could endanger that game they really like getting a sequel. I mean that's the real power of paying for something isn't it? It's a clear vote that says "I want more of this right here" that developers would have to be stupid to ignore.

Personally, my favorite means of doing business with game developers so far is Kickstarter, I can spend what I want, get the game, and help the developers. I can't imagine it getting any better.

Are you kidding? I don't have calculations. I'm talking about sales figures. Your pirate who goes on to buy the game adds 1 to the total sales figure. He is accounted for. I'm not sure where you came up with the idea that my 'calculations' would not account for this. My pirate who would have purchased the game if not for piracy does not add 1 to the sales figure. We agreed that developers use these sales figures in their relations with publishers. Therefore, the person who pirates the game when he would have purchased it instead is doing harm to the developer in not adding to the sales figure. He would have purchased it. He did not because piracy exists. The developer has a weaker position in their next negotiation because of this person.

I think what phoenix352 is saying is that this is negated by the number of people who only buy a game because they were able to pirate it first. I can see the train of thought, but it's no good because he's completely guessing at the numbers, and assuming that the two groups balance each other out based on no evidence whatsoever.

P.S. Thanks

i am not assuming numbers , there are no numbers for both groups.i just lay it out like it is.

just like were assuming some people would have bought a copy if the piracy option wasn't there. were also assuming that some of the pirates will buy a copy after they already pirated that game.

its an argument based on assumptions = irrelevant.all i meant.

if there was a proven way to accurately know how many people would of bought a copy if piracy didn't exist then i would whole heartily agree.but as that's not the case i will continue to defend that side.

piracy gets the wrong rep here and i dislike that, while its immoral its not harmful financially.

They're not forcing a damn thing on you. It's entirely up to you whether you engage in a transaction with them.

This is entirely different from piracy, where someone take the fruits of the labour the publishers paid for without allowing those who made it happen the option to disagree. The pirates are the only ones who are forcing anything.

IP laws *ARE* enforced by law, without asking you first whether you agree that publishers' rights to data control can supersede your own rights of communication, and usage of your own property.

Every time a youtube video you made is removed because it's someone's property, every time a café owner gets fined for playing his own music CDs to a too large public, every time you are told whether you are allowed to apply your photocopier to the books that you own, they are forcing their rights before yours.

ARE their rights more important in these cases than your? Is it somehow part of creative workers' "property" to tell what other people are allowed to do with their own objects, how they can use the Internet, and what data they are allowed to share each other?

If yes, why? After the entertainment industry growing like crazy in the past decade either in spite of or thanks to all this piracy, if the protection of "sciences and useful arts" is possible without that much control, why is it necessary that they have such rights?

Seriously? You're seriously arguing that the person who came up with the idea, laid down the effort and cash required to make it into a game (whether by doing it themselves, or finding someone willing to risk their cash to hire the people needed to get it done) has no moral right to dictate what happens to it? You do realize that without the IP holder, the IP in question would probably not exist, right?

(I think we have already talked about this part once, but...)

No, I'm not questioning the general concept of IP, of creators dictating "what happens to it", but how do you know exactly HOW FAR is it reasonable for creators to dictate?

Yes, the work wouldn't exist without them. So what? They can ask for payment before doing a certain work, like everyone else before doing a job. But doing a job, and then asking the government to give them the right to censor other people's data distribution?

Actually most creators have every such right. It why we *have* the copyright and patent systems, after all, to protect these people so that they feel that if they spend the time and effort to make something that benefits us all, they'll get properly compensated for it, and not ripped off by a bunch of entitled brats who think not having enough money is justification enough to take anything they like.

Most creators, yes, if you intentionally define these as IP holders, but I asked for most workers.

There is enough enough data to suggest (beyond common logic and anecdotal evidences), that the entertainment industries can still exist while data distribution is not limited.

If that is the case, what makes their demands of "proper compensation" so proper, and being "ripped off" so ripped?

This isn't that new. The third Spyro game did this to those who got pirated 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

But seriously, only 6.4% people bought legit copies? Jesus...

that would be shocking if you didn't factor in that the game is indiesold of the guys site.

a game posted on all the popular torrent sites will get millions of hits , some indie game on some website is going to get a hell of a lot less exposure.

so based on that we can assume couple hundred thousand people glanced over this on torrent sites while only a couple hundred maybe thousand knew about this through legit channels.

Capitalism doesn't mean you get to unilaterally decide the terms of the deal if you don't like the ones the providers are offering. Capitalism means you get to choose from a number of providers and choose the best one being offered.

Capitalism requires the participation of two parties. Piracy is explicitly *against* capitalism, because it cuts one party out of the equation completely.

Yeah, because monopolistic market regulations as defined by governments are just so freakin' laissez-faire!

Capitalism means that you can make a deal, if you can actually provide supply of a product or service that there is high demand for (because few are willing to provide it at the same price).

But IP laws are pretty much the opposite of free trade, they mean that if you can provide a service, like sing a song that you wrote, and if someone else can sing it better and she asks a better price for it, you can ask your friend the Man to punch her in the face until she stops singing so you are the most demanded singer again.

It would work if you would assume that your writing of the song was some sort of "property" that was yours before it was "taken away", but this in itself is a legal fiction invented specifically to make you more profitable, not a self-evident part of Natural Law.

You have a monopoly on singing that song, and your friend the government is regulating it for you. He might also decide that the other singer was actually doing "fair use" so you are out of luck, or that you lose your "property" after x years in favor of the Public. It's pretty much depending on his mood, how much of a winner you are picked to be.

i made my argument about that in my original post~yeah i admitted that i THINK there would be some who would pay for that game.but you cant count sales based on THOUGHT , the only way for you to count that as a lost sale would be if you had the knowledge that some of those people would 100% buy that game if the piracy option was not available but you cant know that and that's the whole point. there's no way to get accurate numbers on any of this meaning you count lost sales on theoretical information.

on that note what do you then say to a pirate that bought that same game he pirated later ?based on your calculations that's still a "lost sale" in the sales figures even if the pirate got it legit.the publisher only sees that a new copy was sold but doesn't see less pirated copy's. and then just claims like the rest that even tho sales were high piracy " crippled" half of it or some other nonsense like that.its inherently a flawed system and should not be used.

Are you kidding? I don't have calculations. I'm talking about sales figures. Your pirate who goes on to buy the game adds 1 to the total sales figure. He is accounted for. I'm not sure where you came up with the idea that my 'calculations' would not account for this. My pirate who would have purchased the game if not for piracy does not add 1 to the sales figure. We agreed that developers use these sales figures in their relations with publishers. Therefore, the person who pirates the game when he would have purchased it instead is doing harm to the developer in not adding to the sales figure. He would have purchased it. He did not because piracy exists. The developer has a weaker position in their next negotiation because of this person.

when i say calculations i mean the sales figures.my pirate as i stated is indeed counted as a sales figure BUT he also pirated the game beforehand meaning he is also a "lost sale" based on your rules.

so how can 1 person then be both a sale figure and a lost sale figure?that's the pickle with that one.

i agree that the person who would have bought a copy if the option of piracy wasn't available would do harm to the dev but again you don't know that he would have.there is no way to determine that information.saying that he harms the dev is hypothetical because you need to assume that he otherwise would of bought it.meaning anyone that pirates is completely irrelevant to any sales figures period.

if a developer chooses to calculate lost sales from piracy along side the actual sales figures he ends up basing it on estimates and nothing else so there can be no argument made that piracy affected his negotiations.because in our current reality you cant prove that a pirate would buy that game if piracy wasn't a thing. so the end figures are just lies.

that's the whole overarching point its simply a fact that piracy does no harm.

I don't consider every instance of piracy a lost sale. I wouldn't count the guy who bought a copy after designing his own piracy demo plan as a sale that should have happened had he wound up not making the purchase in the end. All I'm saying is there are people who would purchase games but do not because they are available through piracy. This is separate from trying it out first or sticking it to publishers or any of that stuff. These are sales that would have happened had the game not been cracked at distributed. Call them lost sales if you like, but while not every instance of piracy is a lost sale, there are sales that get lost in the mix. Without even doing anything like calculating lost sales, developers are harmed because their final sales numbers are not as high as they would have been and they rely on those numbers. You're right that we can't put a number to them. I'm not saying devs should find some way to account for them on top of actual sales figures, but we have to admit that this happens simply based on our consuming like locusts nature as gamers.

Now we could argue that piracy does no net harm because you can eliminate the people who were never going to buy a game and compare sales gained because of word of mouth or do-it-yourself demoing resulting in a sale and those lost by people who would have purchased if they couldn't pirate, but we don't really have those numbers so it'll be speculation. Again, I'm just saying if there is one person who would have purchased a title and doesn't, the absence of his presence in sales figures does do a bit of damage.

The funny thing is, while I won't call for it in these forums, I won't be upset when a crack of the 'real' game dev tycoon comes out because this stinks of a PR stunt which, while brilliant, is more than a little hypocritical to me because as far as I can tell these two guys are straight ripping off kairosoft and their Game Dev Story.

This is made of 100% pure win. Bookmarking their site for later so I can check out the demo once their site is working again.

J Tyran:I hope there is a special circle of hell for people that pirate an indie game that has no DRM and has a demo. All of the excuses for piracy fall to pieces, its cheap, you do not need to crack it because of broken DRM and you can try the demo.

Because I don't care about definitions. When you pirate a DRM free indie game (especially one that has a demo), you are morally a thief. Fuck off with "no it's copyright infringement" and "the original isn't gone so it's not theivery see?" MORALLY, you are a thief and you deserve all the negative connotations associated with being a thief.

But IP laws are pretty much the opposite of free trade, they mean that if you can provide a service, like sing a song that you wrote, and if someone else can sing it better and she asks a better price for it, you can ask your friend the Man to punch her in the face until she stops singing so you are the most demanded singer again.

It would work if you would assume that your writing of the song was some sort of "property" that was yours before it was "taken away", but this in itself is a legal fiction invented specifically to make you more profitable, not a self-evident part of Natural Law.

You have a monopoly on singing that song, and your friend the government is regulating it for you. He might also decide that the other singer was actually doing "fair use" so you are out of luck, or that you lose your "property" after x years in favor of the Public. It's pretty much depending on his mood, how much of a winner you are picked to be.

All property law is "legal fiction". I own a car because of the amount of work I fulfilled the requirements for owning it (paid the maker money). Thus I have a monopoly on what can be done with the car within a set of government regulations. If someone tries to exercise rights on it that I or the law did not grant them, I can "ask your friend the Man to punch them in the face until they stop what they are doing".

Your argument pretty much boils down to you being willing to grant property rights only to physical objects and not allowing that any rights be granted for merely doing the creative work needed before hand. However, the creative people want to be compensated for their work and want to be able to set their own rates. The government acknowledges that it needs their professional contributions seriously enough that it created a social contract that grants the creators a set of rights over their creations.

Because I don't care about definitions. When you pirate a DRM free indie game (especially one that has a demo), you are morally a thief. Fuck off with "no it's copyright infringement" and "the original isn't gone so it's not theivery see?" MORALLY, you are a thief and you deserve all the negative connotations associated with being a thief.

Yeah, and if you vote for a communist party, that makes morally a rapist.If you drink before driving, that makes you morally an arsonist. If you abort your fetus, that makes you morally an EA CEO.

Insults are one thing, but if you really "don't care about definitions", then you might as well pick one that will cause less inevitable confusion and discussion of definitions about whether you are mixing up two crimes, or just using one crime's weight as a vague estimation of an unrelated one's weight.

(no seriously though this is the kind of 'drm' if you can even call it that, that works with the 'true customers' with no detriment to their experience while also giving the pirates inconvenience. Which is what should happen.)

Kind of like those pieces of music that are pirated and half way though the song there's a clip of woody wood pecker singing instead. It's just poetic justice and discourages piracy without being heavy handed or scornful to valued customers.

Captcha: "Can't have nice things" Well actually sir Captcha, in this case, this is why we CAN have nice things.

Well then at least someone is actually considering there is no real reason for piracy other than the fact that some people simply do not want to pay, which is true because cases like this prove all of the sob stories (great description btw) are bullshit.

Not wanting to pay someone for something they created is wrong, no other way around it. Sure its not the same as theft but its taking something for nothing and not giving someone their fair due, anyone trying to justify it needs to realign their morals. Putting self entitlement ahead of fair due is one thing when it comes to big publishers that make billions but its a another when it comes to hard working devs that rely on their income for their bread and butter.

At the end of the day I have no personal ax to grind over piracy, I have no issues with some types of piracy either. Like when people pirate a TV show or film that for whatever reason had restricted availability in their region but they later buy the BD/DVD. Same goes for when publishers go out of their way to avoid selling or supporting a game outside of certain countries, thats pants on head retarded and its their own fault if it gets copied.

I just wish the train of bullshit excuses would go away when people simply want a product without paying for it.

No, I mean that in a general sense. What if there is no NEED for sob stories, because piracy is not evil?

In other words, how do you know what you know?

There are plenty of examples of you benefiting using something without necessarily paying money, because the business model ended up that way. Wikipedia (donations), The Escapist (ads), Land TV broadcasting (ads), F2P (optional paying customets), fanfiction, webcomics, youtube cartoons (hobby work), etc.

Of course, the difference between these and piracy, is that these agreed to free distribution.

But how do you know that for publishers, it's "their fair due" to force a business model on yo where everyone has to pay?

Now assume that the game actually ends up being profitable, like most do, regardless of piracy. Compared to some low level animator or sound effects designer, who just got a monthly paycheck for his work and that's it, why should there also be an "IP holder", who beyond getting money, also has "a fair due" to feel morally entitled to limit the number of people playing the game?

Beyond the financial ad absurdum of how the industry would break down if everyone would pirate, basically all arguments I hear about piracy, boil down to this moral feeling of how artists should have a right to keep controlling EXACTLY what happens to every copy of their work.

But where does it come from? Most workers have no such rights, they just work, and that's it. Why are artists so priviledged, that their rights involve cntrolling the rest of the world's data transmission to protect their "fair due?"

Sorry but this is nothing but self entitlement, you are claiming anyone should have the right to use software simply because its there and you do not agree with how people try to protect their IP?

Sure the copywrite systems in place today are broken and in need of reform but that still doesn't mean anyone has the right to obtain something because they do not agree with the business model.

Programmers and artists spend hundreds of hours creating something they intend to sell, the consumers are basically entering an unwritten contract along the lines of "you spend time creating entertainment for me, in return I will pay you for providing it for me".

Its that simple, they do it as a type of service. Your concept of free entertainment is missing an important part, sure some websites and games and other types of content are free at the point of use but ultimately we are still paying for it.

The ads and other marketing efforts just pass the cost on elsewhere, if you buy a product from a company that places internet ads the marketing budgets are passed on the consumer. The money doesn't come out of thin air.

Obtaining a product or service and not paying is morally wrong, whether a physical item was exchanged or not. Like waiters and waitresses in the US, most of their earnings come from tips. Not passing a modest tip is a shitty thing to do, sure they never actually gave you anything but they exchange their time and effort for money.

Same for a developer, you pay them to entertain you. Simple as that pirates are simply refusing to uphold that unwritten contract. Anyone that believes the things in your post is morally bankrupt at worst or some kind of digital socialist at best.

JazzJack2:Piracy leads to more people playing your game, and if your game is good then they will not only gain trust in you as a developer (leading to much better sales for future games) but they will help market your game through word of mouth. Look at minecraft, not only is it one of the most easily pirated games of all time it is also one of the most successful indie games of all time. Why? Because piracy helped send it to almost viral like popularity.

On the other hand, people who pay for the game can also evangelise it, in addition to having paid for it. Minecraft was amazingly successful despite being massively pirated; it was also a really fun, well marketed, highly creative game.

You don't need pirates evangelising your game if it's good, not in this day and age with so many impartial reviewers on youtube giving excellent reviews of just about everything (TotalBiscuit, anyone?)

While that is hilarious as an anti-piracy/shaming tool, I hope that as an actual mechanic piracy does not just suck your company dry, because it doesn't necessarily work like that in real life and I don't like biased portrayals.

All property law is "legal fiction". I own a car because of the amount of work I fulfilled the requirements for owning it (paid the maker money). Thus I have a monopoly on what can be done with the car within a set of government regulations. If someone tries to exercise rights on it that I or the law did not grant them, I can "ask your friend the Man to punch them in the face until they stop what they are doing".

Your argument pretty much boils down to you being willing to grant property rights only to physical objects and not allowing that any rights be granted for merely doing the creative work needed before hand. However, the creative people want to be compensated for their work and want to be able to set their own rates. The government acknowledges that it needs their professional contributions seriously enough that it created a social contract that grants the creators a set of rights over their creations.

"legal fiction" is not just a nickname for laws with a subjective basis, but an actual terminology for legal rulings that are based on "virtually simulating" a fact. IP is legal fiction because it pretends that the usage of data can be thought of as physical object.

Besides, lurk more legal philosophy. Pretty much all of it agrees that the concept of property is one of the basic tenets of civilization, and the very concept of "law", and the reason why governments exist in the first place, as anecessity to protect it (with a "Social Contract" or otherwise).

Many of these philosophers wrote before IP even existed.

Copyright is a modern market regulation, that was first invented in 1662 specifically as a certain english King's method of dealing with political censorship, by trusting the book publishers' guild with regulating appropriate content in turn for getting copyright monopoly over everything. By 1710, the publshers' guild already granted copyright to individual writers first, to justify it's continued existence, and by the American Constitution, the purpose to "promote science and the useful arts" has appeared as a justification.

There is a pretty fundamental difference between physical property and IP.

While exactly how physical property is protected might be an issue of specific laws, but the basic admittance that property exists has been with us since Hammurabi and longer, it's a legal axiom. Property exists beause... because property exists.

IP on the other hand, exists because of whatever reason publishers can think of, and whatever limits of control govermnents considered to be necessary at a time being.

The recent interpretation that IP should be thought of as another form of "property", (down to it's very name "intellectual property", which is actually a late 20th century invention), and that it should be respected for it's own sake because "it belongs to the creators", is a part of the copyright industry's "piracy is theft" concept, intended to remove the possibility of copyright reform.

Because after all, if IP is just a market regulation with the specific purpose of helping artists, people might start to wonder exactly how much regulation they need. What if they don't actually need 90 years of control? Or they don't need DMCA youtube takedowns? Or they don't need to control file-sharing at all, as the make enough money from physical copies sales monopoly, and optional sales, and ads, and donations, and merch?

But if it's "property", than every move against it means "taking away from artists what is their due", what obviously belongs to them just because, regardless of whether they need it or not, taking it away would still be like Robin Hood robbing the rich.

J Tyran:I hope there is a special circle of hell for people that pirate an indie game that has no DRM and has a demo. All of the excuses for piracy fall to pieces, its cheap, you do not need to crack it because of broken DRM and you can try the demo.

Plus its not a protest against big publishers and their practices its just the little guys trying to earn a living, no excuses whatsoever.

That's my biggest beef with the pirating culture. I don't care about the actual pirating, because I buy some of the moralistic arguments about fighting against the absolutely ridiculous and ineffective measures publishers use to hassle consumers and sometimes wonder if publishers aren't actually trying to push people to piracy for some reason. Then something like this or the Humble Indie Bundle incident happens. They had a chance to justify their platitudes and failed miserably. I hope the ethical pirates are absolutely fuming at this.

J Tyran:I hope there is a special circle of hell for people that pirate an indie game that has no DRM and has a demo. All of the excuses for piracy fall to pieces, its cheap, you do not need to crack it because of broken DRM and you can try the demo.

Plus its not a protest against big publishers and their practices its just the little guys trying to earn a living, no excuses whatsoever.

That's my biggest beef with the pirating culture. I don't care about the actual pirating, because I buy some of the moralistic arguments about fighting against the absolutely ridiculous and ineffective measures publishers use to hassle consumers and sometimes wonder if publishers aren't actually trying to push people to piracy for some reason. Then something like this or the Humble Indie Bundle incident happens. They had a chance to justify their platitudes and failed miserably. I hope the ethical pirates are absolutely fuming at this.

Incidents like this smash all the pitiful excuses, only 6% of the people playing their game bought it. Thats horrible, spending all that time to create something only to see self entitled gamers refusing to give their fair due must be awful.